Nothing like a cheese sandwich

You know how they say,"Nothing like a cheese sandwich?" Well, they don't mean it. Let's be completely honest (we're among friends, right?) they hardly even mean it when they say, "Time is money" or "Best friends with goldfish." But what I've got in my craw this evening is the first phrase. Nothing like a cheese sandwich. Robert Redford would say it like this, "There's nothing like a cheese sandwich." But I prefer my own way, and keep the "there's" off. Know what I mean? Now most other things I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Redford. But not this.

Not Much. what's a woodchuck with you?

On the way home from Awana today, my son asked me why a woodchuck is called a woodchuck. I told him, I did not know but would find out.

And the thing is I did . . .




groundhog day! Originally uploaded by NapaneeGal


I originally thought that woodchuck was just an informal version of Wood Charles. It turns out, a woodchuck is just another name for a groundhog. It comes from the Indian name for groundhogs and other similar animals, wujak. The name evolved into woodchuck. I don't believe the animal evolved, but I can believe the name did.

I also found out that woodchuck isn't the only alternate name for groundhog. There is also Land Beaver and Whistle Pig. It reminds me of that old tongue twister (I just made up):

How many names would a ground hog have if a ground hog could ground names?

Keith Time: Memories From the Funeral Part I

HSD Rewind: Puppyisms

HSD Rewind

Originally broadcast February 2009 (edited for the 2nd decade of the 21st century, which includes name changing)

A common theme of this blog has been the sayings of my youngest daughter which I call puppyisms.

Here is what I wrote about it last year . . .


I would have no problem at all filling a daily blog with just crazy things my children say. So far the youngest is the most quotable. Today, I was putting on her bathing suit on and then her clothes over them. This generally takes me two minutes because she is a very squirrely three year old. During those two minutes this conversation occurred:



Me: Let's get dressed for swimming.



Puppy: Is today Monday or Tuesday?



Me: No today's Thursday.



Puppy: Oh Man!



Me: ?



Lucy: I love Monday. Is Monday soon?



So, most people might be thinking what is so special about Monday? Monday is a good day for her; she has some classes she really enjoys at our Home School Co-op. I don't think that's why she said it. I think she has my random genes. She just says things as they occur to her. Things that would never occur to anyone. Like the next thing she said.



Puppy: Butera loves me.



Me: You mean Butera, the grocery store?



Puppy: Yes, Butera loves me.



The problem is that she says so many crazy things, generally in a 2 minute period, that I can't possibly remember them all to tell Amy when she gets home. Point in fact, she said something very random indeed after the Butera comment, but now I have no idea what it was. She just marched in the room chanting "Hello Pumpkin. Hello Pumpkin." I guess, that will have to do.


MEANWHILE BACK IN 2010 . . .

Same puppy, different year. She is still as random as ever. We were at Aldi the other day and she was off the wall. She was pushing the cart, climbing on shelves. Just acting nuts. Then she stops what she's doing, becomes all calm and controlled and says to woman next to us. "I really like your hair." The lady thanks her and then she's crawling the walls again

Keith Time: Amy Remembers Keith Part II

What is eighteen pounds of intervention worth?

They say an ounce of intervention is worth a pound of cure. Well today I received 288 ounces of intervention in the mail. That is to say I received an 18 pound package containing Saxon Phonics Intervention. This is the program that Spider Droid and I are going to work through this school year. Now if an ounce of intervention is worth a pound of cure, then 288 ounces should be worth 4608 pounds of intervention. That's more than 2.3 tons of intervention. I'll let you know if it's enough.

Next Time: Time Travel or Ipods whichever comes first.

Giving Amy Access. Should I be Scared?

From time to time Amy serves as a guest blogger for me. I have decided to make it official by making her a contributor to this blog. There really should not be any cause for alarm in allowing your wife full access to your blog. But when your wife likes to write crazy things in your blog when she is "supposed" to be editing it, that's a different story. Remember last week when I wrote about Bob Newhart loving me? I had to write that in self defense.

In the previous post she had removed my little blurb about what was coming next and wrote "Next Time: Bob Newhart Loves Dave." Sure, I could have simply changed back to my blurb. But we would probably still be playing tug-of -blog. So I showed her! I just wrote a silly post to match her silly title.

So why oh why would I give her more license for craziness instead of suspending her license? To meld Mickey Mouse Club and Sally Field : Y? Because I like her, I really really like her. I am sure you will like her to.

Next Time: Ipod casts aspersions.

Bob Newhart loves Dave, a Lunatic's Memoir

Dave liked to spend his nights pondering the imponderable questions of life and eating orange slices, sometimes the candy, sometimes the fruit. He liked to mix things up like that. But most importantly, was the pondering of the imponderable. Such as, what the best thing before sliced bread was. He would bring himself back in time around the table, where a family was eating unsliced bread. A family down the street would knock on their door and say, "Hey, you gotta see this!" They would pull out a bag of bread they just got at the store and everyone would gasp because it was already sliced. But once discovered, what would they say that's the best thing since...

The ice truck? The horse and carriage? Movable type? What would it be??

These are things Dave would ponder.

He also would ponder if famous people were fans of normal people since normal people were fans of famous people. For instance, Dave loved Bob Newhart. But did Bob Newhart love Dave? Would Bob Newhart think, "Hey that Dave is great." He makes radio shows in his car. He spends time with his family. He returns money if he is undercharged. Dave felt that any day now he would get a request for a signed picture of himself from Bob Newhart, so Dave just sent him one.

Next Time: Summer Reading Results

What a thing to say.

Label Appreciation Society is reconvening with # 12 in a (3-way tie) Random Postings.

The label random postings could easily be placed on 40 % of my posts. I am in my very nature random. However, I have saved this label for the truly random like my post about alternate names for our home school or when I solicited opinions about keeping my beard or shaving it off, or my classic April 1 2009 post how High Fructose Corn Syrup works for me.

Today's random post is about a cocktail party game that Amy and I made up called what a thing to say. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that between Amy and myself we have attended a total of zero cocktail parties. I mean we're only in our forties, we're pacing ourselves. I just imagine it's a game that would go over well at cocktail parties. We play it at social gatherings like weddings, wakes, funerals, reunions the sort of thing where much small talk will occur.

The way we play is like this. Before the EIQ (Event in Question) one of us thinks a phrase that the other person has to say and the # of different times they have to say it. They are not supposed to reveal that they are playing a game and just work it into conversations. In November of 1997, Amy and I were recently engaged and were at my grandfather's wake. This is the first time I remember playing. I gave Amy the phrase "People don't floss as much as they used to." She played it like a champ. One year at Christmas with Amy's side of the family I was to use the phrase "the all-mighty dollar" and I just kept bringing it up into conversation and no one other than Amy had any clue that it was all pre-arranged.

Other phrases soon followed like "I don't like (whoever had just been mentioned) they supported the war movement" this was funny at the time because it was the late 90's and there was really no war movement to support. We still laugh when we remember Amy telling her Aunt that she doesn't like Oprah Winfrey because she "supported the war movement." Especially when her aunt thought Amy had made it up just then.

What a thing to say has not been all that popular with us in the past 8-10 years as we have both been to family parties where we don't remember having any conversations because we were so busy herding children. Now that our children are becoming a little more self regulating it may become a game we play more often. Maybe at our first cocktail party.

Next Time: The return of 7 word September

Local Anesthesia?

It is time once again for six word Saturday over at show my face dot com. Today's Six:

Think Local. Drink Local. GPS Needed.

There are many unusual things about me. Here are just a few that relate to today's rant.

1) I listen to the radio quite often.
2) I pay attention to the commercials.
3) I notice discrepancies between fact and error (in advertisements and other programming.)
4) When I notice these discrepancies or abnormalities, I talk back to the radio as if it could hear me.


While I am for the most part a Chicago White Sox fan, I listen to quite a few Chicago Cubs games. A long time sponsor of Chicago Cubs baseball is Old Style Beer. For the past few years Old Style has had the advertising catch phrase: Think Local. Drink Local. They have had several different radio ads over the past few years but the idea is to tie in the Old Style product with being authentically Chicago.

This is not a bad idea, as I have been following the Cubs since the early 70's and Old Style has been connected to the team and the broadcasts as far back as I remember.

The thing that gets to me is at the end of the commercial after they have made the whole think local, drink local, pitch they announce the name of the company and where there company is from: G Heileman Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Hey! So let's get this straight. Chicago Cubs fans should think local and drink local by buying beer from a company from a different state?

This year the ads have been about how to "kraeusen (the sytematic way Old Style is brewed)" different Chicago institutions. The idea is that since Kraeusening makes Old Style better, the ads tell how to make other typically Chicago things like 16 inch softball better. So when those commercials come on I usually talk back to the radio and say: here is how I would Kraeusen this commercial: I wouldn't talk about how great it is to be local and then say: "Hey, we're not even from here."

One of the first years this campaign was on the radio, the Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers were fighting for the lead in the division almost all Summer. I found it ironic that the company championing being local had their offices in a town where most of their residents were cheering against the Cubs.

The crazy thing is I don't drink alcohol at all. So Why does non beer drinking Sox fan get all worked up about beer commercials primarily played during Cubs games? If I could answer that question, my therapy bills would be much much lower.

Now that you know that I think loco, head back to Six Word Saturday at Show my face dot com.

A School by Any Other Name

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at About Homeschooling with the theme Celebrating Life. I am celebrating our home school by telling you a little about the genesis of it's name.

I am not sure if I ever told you people out there in blog world why our home school is named the Izola Becker Home School.


My Grandma's name was Izola Roller. Her maiden name was Becker. Now, no one called her Izola. She was "Mom" to her kids, "Grandma" to her grandkids and great grand kids and "Babe" to everyone else. My grandma was a wonderful woman and when she died a few years ago we decided to honor her by naming the homeschool after her. Even though she had 30 grandchildren, and over 40 great grandchildren, she remembered everything! A few weeks before she died, she told Amy to make sure that even though Emma is homeschooled, that she's involved in some type of art class because that was her major area of interest. How did she KNOW that, with all of those kids in the family? Even on her deathbed at 97, she was trying to remember a poem, and I called home and had Amy read me the lines after she googled it, and Grandma said, "I need to memorize that poem." I am not sure we would have named it at all, otherwise.

I got to wondering the other day what else we might call this school.


Here are some ideas:


Izola Becker Home School & Grill.

The Izola Becker Institute for Conduct Unbecoming an Officer.

The "Please settle down, I'm trying to blog about home schooling, Home School."

The "Your Mileage may Vary" School of Cartography.

Hansel and Gretel's Edible Home School.

International Home School of Pancakes.

The Socialization, Smotialization Academy.

McHome School: Over 2 Taught.

Roller Coasters Home School Theme Park.


I also thought of a few slogans for our school:



Need a home schooler, take a home schooler. Have a home schooler, leave a home schooler.


Students may look closer than they appear.


Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from Star Trek.


Look where your tax dollars aren't going.



Well that's enough craziness for one day. If you have any home school name or slogan ideas let me know.



Next Time: C&H

March . . .

and the world marches with you.

February . . .

and you feb alone.

Multiplication and McCarthyism

Word Count Wednesday: 100 Words or Les


Crazy Uncle Dave here. It’s late Tuesday night, early morning Wednesday. Here are a few random thought to start/finish my day.

Yesterday, Charlie did double digit multiplication for the first time. Where’s the camera when you need it?


If comedy = tragedy + time, does parsley = oregano + thyme?
Speaking of comedy = tragedy plus time . . .

A Poem by Joseph McCarthy
Roses are red
Violets are too
Everything’s red
Except me and you
And I’m not so sure about you.




Next Time: You haven’t seen . . . ?!!!!?

Six Word Saturday

As I wrote earlier this week, I took the week off, for the most part to concentrate on regular old life. Any blogging I did do was in preparation for the blog carnivals I am hosting next week.

Well, I am back and back with my contribution to Six Word Saturday.

Here goes . . .

Six words for blogging. Reviews: four.

I really like Six Word Saturdays at Show my Face.com. It is a challenge to condense your week into six words. I guess that's why I enjoyed The four world film review (FWFR) so much.

It is strikingly similar to Six Word Saturdays but it is relegated to film reviews. Your reviews can be less than 4 words but not more than 5. The idea is you submit these film reviews and then they are either accepted or rejected by the editorial staff at fwfr. Once accepted then your reviews can be voted on by other members if they enjoyed them. From 2005 to 2008 I had 657 reviews approved which is good for 105th all time of fwfr reviewers.

My first review was of the movie Return to Me. (Love grows where transplanted).

I have reviewed films from 3 different centuries: Edison's Kinetoscopic record of a sneeze from 1894 (Lights. Camera. Ahchoo), 1986's Peggy Sue Got Married (Turner ignores time warner), and Crash from 2004 (Six degrees of segregation).

Other reviews I am quite fond of are

Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace: First shall be fourth.

Cars - Herbie Fully downloaded.

Legend of Bagger Vance: Golf War Syndrome.

Wizard of Oz: Garland's dream role.

Braveheart: Wallace lethal weapon too.

Emperor's New Groove: Me llama, David Spade.

American President: 1600 (Pennsylvania) First Dates.

Jonah: A Veggietales Movie - Animal, Vegetable, Biblical.

I especially enjoyed the ones where I actually was able to make salient points about the film even while making a pun or two. For example . . .

A River Runs Through It: Redford's Reel - Great Casting.

Breaking Away: Cycling down 'Rocky' road.

I mentioned that I used to like fwfr. I still do. I just kind of grew out of it. Writing 657 film reviews in 3 years will do that to a guy. I recently submitted a few new reviews. One that was just accepted was: The Dark Knight (Knight dark. Joker Darker.)

I will leave you today with four word reviews of my 3 favorite movies of all time.

I'll just say the reviews without the titles. The first person ( who is not my wife.) who can give me the correct title of each film will win a bag of ramen soup.

1. Angel gives Christmas absence.

2. Swampdwelling Muppet becomes star.

3. Brother drowns. Mother frowns.

So those are my six words about four words. To see more Six words click here. For more reviews, albeit book reviews longer than 4 words, come back tomorrow for the Book Review Blog Carnival.

Next Time: Book Review Blog Carnival. Didn't I just say that?

Lucyism on the go

Today I was driving Amy to work so I could have the car to take Emma to a retainer check at her orthodontist. Yesterday when the office called to remind us of the appointment they advised us to make sure we brought the retainer. It's a retainer check! The retainer is a key player in the appointment.

Lucy was in the back of the car as Amy and I were discussing pick up procedures for the end of the day. Lucy broke in and said "Mom if you are having a hard day and are tired and want to come home. Just give us a call and say 'This is Amy Roller.' and we'll come here and get you."

This was about 14 hours ago and I am still laughing. We brought the retainer, just in case you were wondering!

No 3 Things This Thursday but I'll be back next week with another exciting installment.

Facial Hair Survey

Beard or no beard. You decide.

I have been growing beards much of my adult life. 15 years ago at 30 I noticed a little grey in my beard and I thought it was distinguished. This may have been because the grey was limited to my beard and was about 5-10 strands in total.

After Amy and I got married and we started having kids I developed a beard system. I would generally stay clean shaven during the pregnancy and would stop shaving once the baby was born. I would then keep the beard until the child's first birthday and shave it off. When my oldest turned one, she was asleep when I shaved my beard and left for work. When I came home she literally did not know who I was. When I spoke, her expression changed from "who is that strange man in my house? (Do expressions come in quotes?) to "Ah, that strange man in my house is Daddy.".

My youngest turned 1 almost 3 years ago and I have gone pretty much beardless since. This year since by birthday was a multiple of 5 (Hint: in paragraph 1, I said 15 years ago I was 30.) I decided to try out the old beard again.

Have you ever noticed that in before after photographs the subject is always better dressed, better groomed more spruced up then in the before pictures? Sure, you have.Not here at Home School Dad. We don't play that way.

Here I am a few weeks ago right before I started growing the beard.








And here I am a few weeks later with the beard.


So what do you think beard or no beard? Let me know.


I literally showed my face today. You don't have to show your face to participate in Six Word Saturday. Just shoot on over to Show My Face Dot Com.


Next Time: What's wrong with the Church?

Happy 10th birthday to our Bunny Girl

Today is my little bunny girl's 10th birthday. As far as bunnies go she is not very fast. She went form zero to ten in ten years!!!

We gave her her very own bunny on Saturday as her present. You can read more about said bunny by clicking HERE To commemorate her birthday I am giving her a revised copy of a short story I wrote for her when she was 3. It was a Christmas present at the time. I will share it here also. Let me present ...

The Forgetful Bunny

My name is Billy Bunny and I have a sad story to tell. It all began the Thursday morning after Easter. Thursdays are some of my toughest days. They are so close to Fridays you can feel it, but they are still deeply rooted in Mondays. This particular Thursday was the Thursdayest! I woke up late and all my bunny brothers and sisters had used all the hot water, so I had to have cold water for my shower. On top of that, all the yummy carrot porridge was gone and I only got a woeful amount of twigs and berries. Twigs and berries are okay for some, but when your mouth wakes up expecting carrot porridge, twigs and berries just won’t do it.

I almost missed the bus and when I got to school, my best friend Jeremy Jumping Hare was mad at me. On Monday, Jeremy had come over with all his Easter eggs and we had played with them until we went out to play bunny ball. Jeremy left the eggs at my house. When it began to get dark, Jeremy went right home because his house is very close to the bunny ball field.

Jeremy told me don’t forget to bring the eggs to school tomorrow. But you know what? On Tuesday, I forgot! Jeremy understood cause he knows I can be a very forgetful Bunny.

I forgot again on Wednesday and this time, Jeremy was not so understanding. I promised him I would not forget on Thursday. But Thursday morning was so Thursdayish, I clean forgot!

I gave Jeremy my best shrug and was right about to promise that Friday, carrot porridge or no carrot porridge, he would have his eggs back. But before I could begin he said:

“Listen, Billy Bunny! If my eggs are more important to you than being friends, you can keep them! But we won’t ever be friends again."

That is my sad sad story. Jeremy Jumping Hare doesn’t want to be my friend anymore. He and I have been best bunny buddies since we could hardly hop. If I can only have one friend over to stay the night, it is always Jeremy. When I buy bunny ball cards, I always give my doubles to Jeremy, even if he doesn’t have any good trades.

It is still Thursday, I just got home on the bus. I got aninvitation to Emma Roller’s bunny party, but I don’t even want to go. Jeremy will be there. and we’d usually hang out and have lots of fun. What fun is a party when your friend isn’t your friend anymore?

I know what I’ll do! I’ll march right over to the meadow and find Jeremy. I am sure he is jumping in the high clover. Jeremy always jumps in the high clover when he’s mad.

Here I go march, march, march. I see Jeremy and give him the eggs and say:

"Even if we can’t be friends any more I want you to have your eggs."

Then I give him my only Roddy Rabbit bunny ball card. Roddy Rabbit is the best bunny baller ever! His cards are harder to come by than either Hop Harrelson's or Sweet Bunny Brown's .

Jeremy takes the eggs and the card and says we can still be friends. I’m going to see him tomorrow at Emma’s party!

Not a bad day, even for a Thursday!

We love you bunny! Happy Birthday!

Special Thanks to Write Anything for including this in the October Carnival of Creativity.

Next Time: Agua only August

Happy Birthday Grandma

My Grandmother would have turned 101 today. Around these parts, we call that the Dalmatian birthday. She died a few years ago and I still remember one of the last things she said. I wasn't actually there, but Amy was. It sounded to me like she was talking to God and she said, "I can't go yet, I have great grand-children coming." One of those children was my youngest, who we were expecting.

The day before my Grandma's 95th birthday party I wanted to write her something special about how much she meant to me. I went through a couple of dozen drafts just to hone up on my basketball skills (I kept crumpling them up and throwing them away) until I came up with a keeper. I read it at her party and when she passed away two years later I read it again. I share it here in memorial of one of the finest people I have ever known.

1 of 29

I share a grandmother with 28 others

All of their sisters and all of their brothers

And even if we hadn't produced the next generation

She's still be a great grandmother in my estimation

Growing up Grandma could pick us each from the crowd

She knew who was shy and which ones were loud

Her love for our Grandpa was always displayed

He was her Jack, and she was his Babe

While our love and respect she has merited

I'd like to speak of the things we've inherited

Her sense of family and love for games

The memory of a pole with our heights and our names

So Grandma as I wish you a happy birthday

There's one more thing I'd like to say

While I maybe just 1 of 29

You made me feel like you're mine all mine

Next Time: A New Way to Cut Pancakes.

COH #177 - Take me out to the ball game

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the 177th edition of the Carnival of Home Schooling. Today's theme Baseball.

Before we go any further please join me for the singing of the Star Bangled Spanner. (I have the music playing and the lyrics below so you might as well sing.)

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Play ball!

Since this is my first time hosting the carnival, that makes me a rookie. Perhaps like these major leaguers I will hit a home run on my very first at bat.

Batting leadoff Cristina presents Two Cakes Down, One to Go posted at Home Spun Juggling. It is a reflection of how on her daughters 16th birthday, how little himeschoolings she has left with her. While stopping by the sight, take some time to see some of her comic strips. As a cartoonist she really takes the cake.

As it turns out I am going to see the White Sox play tomorrow. My beloved team has lost 5 in a row as this carnival begins. Lately, the team has been winning when I've been in attendance. But that was not always the case. A few years back, I wrote a humorous piece on how poorly the Sox played in games I attended. It gave me a bad case of Cell Shock.

U.S. Cellular field is a relatively young stadium opening in 1990. The oldest stadium currently in use is Fenway Park home of the Boston Red Sox since 1912. Wrigley Field home of the Chicago Cubs opened 2 years later. The newest stadiums opened in New York this year; one for the Mets and one is the new home for the New York Yankees.

Speaking of which, ChristineMM presents A Parenting Tip for Those Raising Independent Persons posted at The Thinking Mother. She even has a story about attending a recent Yankees game. Way to Theme Christine. Way to Theme.

Behind every great baseball team is a great manager. It once was common that as a player aged, he would transition into a player manager. Don Kessinger who spent most of his time with the Chicago Cubs finished his illustrious career as a player manager of the Chicago White Sox.

A home school parent is a type of player manager. Teaching "the game" to the next generation. The next few posts deal with some of the managerial aspects of homeschooling beginning with Richele Baburina presenting Managing Chores posted at Barefoot Voyage.

Kevin presents Teaching the Autistic Homeschooler posted at More4kids Homeschooling.

Erin presents Getting it all done, well, enough of it anyway posted at Delighting in His Richness.

Amy Roberts presents Raising Arrows: Declutter Me posted at Raising Arrows.

Prior to the game beginning the managers submit their lineups for the game. Joy Miller presents her line-up in Our Spring Term Curriculum posted at Five J's.

Managing the game is important, so is maintaing the field. Shannon (groundscrew for this ferstival) presents How Does Your Garden Grow? posted at Song of My Heart.

When I attend tomorrow's White Sox game I will be taking all 3 of my children. (1 for the first time) It should cost me a pretty peeny right? Not as much as you'd think. Of the 30 major leauge ball clubs 90% have some sort of kids club. The majority of these clubs offer free tickets to elected games as part of the membership. There is generally amembership fee (usually 10 or 20 per child). 4 of the teams including the White Sox have some level of membership which includes free tickets at no cost to join. So, I still have to pay mega bucks to park? Nope, with public trans the 4 0f us will travel round trip for less than $10.00. Before you ask about outrageous concession fees, I am able to bring 1 bottle of water for each person into the ball park and food in as well. That's what I call fun on a budget.

In the middle of baseball season they take a break for the All Star Game. Lara DeHaven presents her own all star team in Our Favorite Books for the 2008-2009 School Year posted at Texas Homesteader.

The Chicago Cubs are famous for their famous double play combination Tinker, Evers and Chance. Reading and writing make a great home school double play, as talked about in the next several posts.

Barbara Frank of Barbara Frank Online has a great way to help your children write clearly and concisely.

Meaghan Montrose presents 5 Ways to Encourage Young Children to Read posted at TutorFi.com.

~Kris~ presents Great Tools for Teaching Reading posted at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Susan Gaissert presents Reading Aloud is Alive and Well posted at The Expanding Life.

Runners have to stay on the bases and the basepaths or else they will be tagged or called out.

The following folks "tagged out" ideas they found off base:

Alasandra presents Homeschooling in nothing like creationism posted at Alasandra's Homeschool Blog.

Henry Cate need an umpires ruling. Read What are they measuring?
at Why Homeschool? to help him out.

Bring out the pink bats.

Major League Baseball recently started celebrating Mother's Day by having the players use specially made pink bats at Mother's days games. To that end, Becca presents On Making your Child Feel Loved posted at Inspiration for Mothers . Com.

Billboards near the bleachers.

Baseball games are a great way for businesses to advertise. Many companies have brought naming rights for the stadiums themselves. Others just buy advertisements on the programs or around the ball park. A few of this weeks submissions were somewhat prmotional in nature and I thought I'd run them here as the "products" may be useful to home schoolers.

Bridget Verhaaren presents The Literate Mother » About posted at The Literate Mother.

Kelly Sonora presents Usability.Edu: 25 Incredibly Useful Usability Cheat Sheets & Checklists posted at Designer City, USA.

Speaking of promotions, Beverly Hernandez of Beverly’s Homeschooling Blog (About.com)wants to remind us of the Subway Sandwich Make It Happen! Contest.

As we near the end of the carnival it's time for the seventh inning stretch. At Miller Field in Milwaukee they play the Beer Barrel Polka, but at most other venues they stick with Take me out to the ball game. It amazes me that the song was written by someone who had not been to a ball game himself at that point in his life.

While many ball parks are completely enclosed, there are still many where rain outs can really mess with their schedule. Last year the White Sox had to make up a rain game against the Detroit Tigers after the season ended. It was a must win game for the Sox as they needed to win to force a tie for their division. In Treasure Trove Katherine of No Fighting, No Biting would not allow a field trip to be rained out. Instead she went to a military exhibition in downtown DC which netted her many school supplies and a chance to learn hands-on about land mines, guns, and parachutes.

Speaking of traveling, Brenda presents Is There a Northwest Passage? posted at The Tie That Binds Us.

This brings us to the end of our ball game. I'd like to commend the fine efforts of those who filled out our roster today. Please exit the carnival in an orderly manner. The next carnival is being hosted by The Common Room. Click here for submissions. I know it's not a magnet, like the ones they give out at the ball park, but here is a schedule of upcoming carnivals.

Next Time: No Nuts.

Random Postings: An open letter to the car behind me.

In 2001 I wrote the following letter for our family website:



Dear Car Behind me 7:30 p.m September 1st exiting Elk Grove Bowl Parking lot onto Southbound Arlington Heights,


Yesterday as my wife, daughter and I were heading home from dinner at the Rose Garden restaurant in Elk Grove we were making a left out of the parking lot of The Grove Shopping Center on the corner of Arlington Heights Road. We were joined by you on our tail. My wife, who is probably the worlds best and safest driver, was waiting for traffic on both sides to subside before making our turn.

This is when you, in your 2nd row mentality, decided that you could see the traffic better behind our minivan than we could ahead of you. So you blared on your horn, indicating that we really should be turning at that exact moment and make you wait no longer. Well, Superman, (A reference to your x-ray vision; being able to see past our car to the ongoing traffic) not 3 seconds after you honked, a northbound car barreled past us.

This means that if we took your horn blowing advice, and stuck our cars nose out in traffic, that most likely my wife, myself, and my daughter and our unborn child would be dead right now. My daughter would not have turned two today. The house in Carpentersville we moved into yesterday would have never been lived in by us, nor paid off by us, saddling our parents with grief and debt.

Fortunately, as disconcerting as your second row salute was, my wife did not go until the coast was actually clear. You, then had the audacity to catch up with us and give my wife a glare! Don't you realize, that if we did take your advice and got smashed up, you would have most likely been even further delayed than you were. When we both stopped at the light at Landmeier it was all I could do to not roll my window down and give you an earful.

This has happened to me so many times before. We live in an area of congested traffic, driving in front of people who honk the horn at us before the light turns green. If you guys are so quick on the draw, how come you generally are behind me ?

So car behind me, next time you are second in line behind somebody else: try to remember that it's not just a car you are behind, it is people!

Love,

Dave Roller

A little perspective: I sent a copy of letter to our local newspaper and they advised me it would be published on September 12, 2001. I don't believe the newspaper evcer published it due to more serious matters from that time period.

Next Time: Give me a Break

High Fructose Corn Syrup

This week at We are That Family there is a special themed version of Works for me Wednesday. It's a backwards rendition of WFMW. You present a dilemma and the rest of the readership tells you what works for them. It's a backwards rendition of WFMW.

My dilemma is this: I wrote a post for WFMW over a month ago for this particular edition. If you go back to my WFMW post back in the Rocks in My Dryer era circa 2-18-09, you will note that I said I had post ideas planned out through 4-15-09. You will also note that Shannon was not running themed editions on the first week of the month for the last few months of her WFMW run. So, I came up with this post and thought it would be terrific for the 1st Wednesday in April. So what do I do? Do I post my original idea or come up with a new post entirely. Here is the post I intended to run today...

High Fructose Corn Syrup

It is so hard to get our children to eat healthy these days. Especially hard to get them to eat their vegetables. That's why I am so glad for high fructose corn syrup(HFCS).

There has been a lot of misinformation coming out about HFCS, and I for one was so deeply moved that the corn refiners association would battle this misinformation with advertisements like this one.

What I especially like about HFCS is that it's in so many products. Because of it's ready availability, it is so easy to eat in moderation.

So, High Fructose Corn Syrup works for me. To see what other sweet ideas are out there go to We are that Family for the April 1st edition of Works For Me Wednesday.

Next Time: Father and Son Ski Trip

Our Reverse Garfield

I would have no problem at all filling a daily blog with just crazy things my children say. And so far the youngest is the most quotable. Today, I was putting on her bathing suit on and then her clothes over them. This generally takes me two minutes because she is a very squirrely three year old. During those two minutes this conversation occurred:

Me: Let's get dressed for swimming.

Lucy: Is today Monday or Tuesday?

Me: No today's Thursday.

Lucy: Oh Man!

Me: ?

Lucy: I love Monday. Is Monday soon?

So, most people might be thinking what is so special about Monday? Monday is a good day for her; she has some classes she really enjoys at our Home School Co-op. I don't think that's why she said it. I think she has my random genes. She just says things as they occur to her. Things that would never occur to anyone. Like the next thing she said:

Lucy: Butera loves me.

Me: You mean Butera the grocery store?

Lucy: Yes, Butera loves me.

The problem is that she says so many crazy things, generally in a 2 minute period, that I can't possibly remember them all to tell Amy when she gets home. Point in fact, she said something very random indeed after the Butera comment, but now I have no idea what it was.

She just marched in the room chanting "Hello Pumpkin. Hello Pumpkin." I guess, that will have to do.

Next Time: They May Want to Consider a Name Change